Even The Best Fall Down Sometimes
by Fabray
Summary: "Y'know, I used to be able to lie here like this and run my fingers through my hair. That's gone now." A disease-ridden Santana along with the two people that ever mattered most to her. Brittany/Santana, Puck/Santana and a little bit of both.


a/n: I know we don't witness much of a back story to Santana on the show. With that being said, I created my own. It's only out of my assumptions that Brittany and Puck are two important people to her, so I decided to throw in a disease-ridden Santana (a la my imagination) alongside the two people that matter the most to her. Dark is not exactly my writing style, but then again, I'm not really sure what is… I hope you enjoy!

**... ... ...**

They're lying in the bed of his truck and it starts to snow but he grabs her wrist and tells her, "Don't go anywhere."

"Wasn't gonna," she remarks.

"Cool." She wishes he'd say more.

She just gulps and takes her hands to her head, running her fingers gently through the strands of hair, now ridden with small flakes of snow.

"So it's curable, right?" He gulps too. "That cancer shit… it's curable?"

"Leukemia," she corrects him. "And it beats me."

"Sure, whatever, just… don't let it _really_ beat you, 'kay?"

"I won't," she breathes. "I'm not a fucking pansy."

"Don't let it turn you into one," he tells her.

So Noah Puckerman actually sounds like he cares – about _her_. She has to listen.

**... ... ...**

"San, no," Brittany swallows, pulling her head away from the cove of Santana's neck.

"Wait," Santana hisses.

"I can't," Brittany pulls away even farther, bowing her head down to the floor. "I don't want to catch it."

"Oh," Santana mumbles. "I… I get it."

"I'm so sorry," Brittany apologizes and it just makes Santana feel about ten times shittier. "I still like you."

"I like you too, B," Santana tells her, leaning her body further into the wall she's up against.

So maybe she likes her a little too much – too much for her own good. But she won't tell her that until the cancer's got her tied up like a puppet on its last string.

**... ... ...**

She throws up blood and she doesn't like it, but she'll have to deal.

"I'll get you a rag." She just hates that she's at Puck's house while she does so.

"No," Santana whimpers, her head still bent over against the sink in his bathroom. "I can take care of myself."

"No you can't," he hisses.

"God, would you quit being an asshole for like, three seconds and just go back in your room? I'll be there in a few."

"Fine," Puck spats. "But next time I won't even offer."

"Hoping you won't," she snaps harshly.

So she won't be back in his room in a few – she's lost track of time now. Enough blood to fill a bucket spews from her mouth and into the sink but she doesn't cry for help because, well, she knows she doesn't need it. She can take care of herself without anyone's help, that's one thing she knows.

But it doesn't stop – it spews and spews and spews like a sprinkler. So maybe she does need his help after all, but it's not like she's gonna call out his name and let him run into the bathroom just to witness the flood of tears painting the sides of her cheeks she doesn't even bother wiping.

She's better all by herself.

**... ... ...**

A note sits in her locker at school and Santana looks around, pressing her fingers over the creases carefully.

_When it starts to bleed, it means your heart's tired from loving too much_.

She doesn't go to rehearsal that day because she can't even try to sing after crying.

Santana sighs, _Brittany_.

**... ... ...**

She misses school for two weeks just before finals; there's no way she can catch up now.

Puck brings her homework over, along with a pack of those licorice strips she used to love.

"You gotta eat," he rubs his hand over her forehead; over the small beads of sweat that flood against her thin, raven-colored hair. "It wasn't always this thin…"

"I'm sick," she breathes, nestling her head further into the pillow she leans on. "_Really_ sick."

She's no longer in denial, no matter how much she wants to be.

**... ... ...**

"We sang a song for you in glee club today," Brittany tells her on the phone that night.

"What song was it?" She smiles for the first time in a long time even though she knows Brittany can't see it through the phone – maybe it's better that way.

"Keep Holding On," Brittany tells her.

"But that's _Quinn's_ song," Santana's smile fades now. "We sang that to her when she was all pissy about being pregnant and crap."

"It's not her song anymore," she speaks softly. "We figure you need it the most now."

"Who's 'we'?" Santana asks.

"Me and everyone else in the glee club, silly," Brittany giggles.

Santana swallows, "They aren't my friends, Britt; none of them."

"I'm your friend," Brittany tells her.

Something in her reacts, "I love you."

"I know," Brittany answers. Santana's glad Brittany's never been a woman of many words.

**... ... ...**

She's feeling better just as the summer begins – it's the thirtieth of June and she slips on denim shorts and a yellow tank top and actually goes to the kitchen for breakfast.

"Someone's here to see you, baby," her dad tells her as he's slipping on his work uniform. She figures he'll be over at his practice all day so she was just going to lie on the couch and catch up on all of her recorded shows or something.

"Thanks, dad," she walks up to him as she lets her weight be taken into his arms, clutching him in a weak hug. "I love you, 'kay?"

"You haven't said that to me in the longest time," her dad pulls her body away from his and runs his fingers over the bottom of her chin gently. "Keep being a trooper, alright? I love you."

She feels like a little girl again.

But that changes when she answers the door, her dad's car pulls out of the driveway and she flicks on the television only to flick it off. She's spread across the couch now, shutting the once open blinds to trap the darkness in, her fingers tangled in between the belt loops of Puck's jeans.

"Are you sure?" He's pulling back for once; she's feisty as ever.

"Mmm," she groans, not thinking twice before burying her mouth deep in the cove of his neck. "Positive."

"Cool," is all he says before he starts to suck the skin on her ear, his tongue leaving a burning feeling.

That burning feeling? Denial. Santana knows it best.

… … …

"You know how you said 'I love you'?" Brittany says.

Santana wishes Brittany didn't have to be by her bedside next to those atrocious, beeping machines with the thousands of wires when she finally brings it up.

"Yeah," Santana mumbles lazily. "Mmm."

Brittany reaches her hand out, her long fingers smoothing over the cold skin of Santana's now-pale knuckles. "Did you only do it because you're dying?"

She just ignores the welling of tears that pile up underneath eyelids, the feeling of wanting to put her fist straight to Brittany's chest and scream at her to leave and never come back to visit. _That'd be denial_, she finally admits to herself.

"I think so," Santana confesses.

"I love you, too."

She falls asleep by the time Brittany sits down on the armchair next to her bed, beeping machines and all.

She wakes up and Brittany's hand is still placed over hers, making small, lazy strokes onto Santana's skin.

Being not-so-in denial never felt better.

**... ... ...**

She throws up blood some more but this time it's during rehearsal.

Finn and Rachel, as honorary co-captains, rush out of the room and tell Mr. Schuester they'll check up on her.

"Hi!" Rachel's giddy and if she weren't so weak, she'd reach her right hand up from the corner of the sink and pound her right in that nose of hers.

But she's weak, "Hi." She speaks over small pants, wiping her hands at the corner of her soaked lips.

Finn can't even watch, "Rach, I'll… I'll wait out here, okay?" His hand's already at the door.

"If you leave this bathroom, I'll break up with you." Rachel snaps and looks back at Santana who's still letting out pants at the sink. "She's obviously sick," she mutters that one with a hiss, but it's not like Leukemia makes Santana lose her hearing.

"Do you need our help?" Finn shuts the door behind him and joins the girls at the sink.

She wants to say no more than anything; to clean up the mess all by herself because she's _gotta_ be capable. "I do."

"No problem," Rachel says, grabbing a wad of paper towels from the dispenser beside the sink. "It'll only get better from here, I know it."

"Not when she's throwing up blood…" Finn mumbles.

"_Finn_!" Rachel snaps but Santana holds up her right hand and stops her.

"It's okay, he's right," she breathes. "I feel like giving up."

"Don't," Finn and Rachel say in unison.

"Too bad I have no choice," Santana hisses.

"But you _do_," Rachel places a hand to her back, only before Santana can shake it off, bending her head over the sink once more as she lets out a strong breath.

But she doesn't, and she's pretty sure Rachel gets a clue now.

So she shuts up, Finn stands next to the sink with bulging eyes and even tries to hide behind Rachel a few times as a spew of blood shoots out of Santana and into the sink, and Santana just does all she can do about it – nothing.

She just feels like giving up some days. Today tops the list.

**... ... ...**

"Was she that tiny last week?" Puck asks as he leans his body closer to the small hospital bed she's laying in.

Brittany and Finn and Rachel do all they can – shrug and shut their eyelids as a nurse enters the room with a long needle and a bucket.

"We… we were just leaving," Rachel stutters, grabbing Finn by the hand and signaling for Brittany and Puck to join her.

"No," Puck hisses. "We weren't."

"Kid, I know you're here because she's your girlfriend or whatever, but I'll give you two minutes and then you're gonna have to leave," the nurse snaps.

He doesn't even bother correcting the nurse; he just grabs onto Santana's frigid hands and holds it for a minute.

"I love you, S," he mutters it so lowly not even he himself remembers if he actually says it.

"Thanks," she's awake and he's jittery so he jerks his head up and pulls his hand away from hers.

Either she's too tired to say anything else, or she's saving all her love for someone else.

He sleeps on that thought and can't ever find an answer.

**... ... ...**

She faints on the lunch line and Dave Karofsky actually laughs.

Dave Karofsky has a bloody nose, a swollen eye and a missing tooth on the right side of his mouth by the time Puck's taken care of him.

Brittany just holds Santana's hand in the nurse's office and even presses her lips to her temple when the nurse turns away.

"Don't go back to class," Santana begs her.

"I won't," is all Brittany says.

**... ... ...**

She knows she won't be at prom – she can't be there.

But Brittany tells her she'll get lots of pictures and that she's going with Puck, "But just as friends!" She's even gotten him to wear a suit and a navy blue tie.

"Tell me what _your_ outfit looks like," Santana says, because that's all she really wants to know.

"I can't," Brittany sighs. "I have to go, Puck's here!"

Brittany calls her after prom and tells her that Puck gave her 'sweet kisses' in the backseat of the limo Rachel's parents chipped in to escort everyone to the dance into.

Santana hangs up the phone with a slam, throws her weak head into her pillow and sobs because if this were last year, she knows she'd be the one giving some sweet kisses. To Brittany or to Puck, she's not even sure. (She doesn't think she wants to know anymore.)

**... ... ...**

"Where do you go when you're gone?" They're lying in the bed of Brittany's dad's pickup truck when she asks her.

All her hair's gone now so she wears a bandana, dark red that blends in with the night. "Up there, I think," Santana brings her eyelids to the night sky and points her thin index finger to it.

"Oh," is all Brittany says.

"Y'know, I used to be able to lie here like this and run my fingers through my hair. That's gone now."

"But you're not," Brittany runs her finger over Santana's covered abdomen.

Santana just shuts her eyelids and gives a small nod off to Brittany.

"Will you wait for me?"

She opens her eyelids only to close them once more, "If I say no you'll wait here until I say yes, right?"

Brittany nods.

"You wait for me," Santana brings her finger to the side of Brittany's cheek teasingly. "Don't you go off marryin' some rich doctor or some shit, you hear me?"

"Ew," Brittany snickers. "I don't even like boys."

"Thank god," Santana's not so sure she'll leave this world liking boys, either.

**... ... ...**

"You'll miss me, right?"

"You're not leavin'."

She ignores his comment, "Don't whore around too much. And don't knock up anymore girls, either. The world doesn't need another Puckerman baby."

"Thanks _mom_," he spits sarcastically. "For someone who's so sure she's dying, you're pretty good at being a bitch."

He's only joking, but that doesn't mean she doesn't cry herself to sleep that night.

**... ... ...**

Her hair's gone, her eyes are weak and blurry, and she wants to rip out her stomach too because it's got no use anymore – she can't keep food down for more than twenty minutes so they don't even bother with her medicine.

"Tell me one thing," she tugs the lower part of Brittany's arm just before she heads out for the night. "Don't forget about me."

"Of course," Brittany smiles. "Artie won't forget you, either. We were talking about you just –"

"_Artie_?" Santana hisses. "B, he's got… he's got nothing to do with this; with us."

"He's my boyfriend again!" She's giddy and Santana begs God to strike her dead right now because she can't do it anymore; she's broken enough so he might as well break all of her.

"So much for waiting," Santana snaps.

Brittany looks down to the floor, almost guiltily, "But you aren't gone."

"I forget that sometimes," Santana confesses, wiping her now-tear-filled eyelids with an unsteady hand.

"Don't be mad, San," Brittany says. "Just because I love him doesn't mean I don't love you. You're like, my best friend."

"That's all I'll ever fucking be," Santana wants to scream but Brittany leaves the room before she can so she just shuts her eyelids forcefully and slams her head down into the pillow at the end of the hospital bed.

**... ... ...**

No one knows exactly because she was alone when it happened, but a nurse calls the time of death at five forty-six in the evening.

"I was here at five thirty," Brittany softly confesses through blurry, dizzy tears.

"Jesus Christ," Puck mumbles. "Jesus _fucking_ Christ."

Rachel's too busy sobbing into Finn's chest to stop him when Puck shoots his body up from the chair in the hospital waiting room and mumbles something before storming out of there.

"He loved her," Finn says in between delivering small strokes through Rachel's thick, brunette locks.

"So did I," Brittany speaks.

Finn stays quiet and Rachel's too busy flooding the exterior of his t-shirt with tears to say anything else.

"More than him," she speaks again.

**... ... ...**

Her funeral's big – tons of people she probably didn't know the first name of. Sure, it's not how she would've wanted it, that's for sure, but it must mean something that like, hundreds and hundreds of people showed up, right?

Brittany, Finn, Puck and Rachel sit in the third row from the back and even Puck cries when Santana's dad walks up to the altar to speak.

"I called her a bitch," Puck hisses in between a flood of tears. "That's the last thing I said to her."

Brittany's still looking onto Santana's dad as he speaks so Puck doesn't think she hears. Rachel reacts by quivering her lip and letting out a sob but Finn places his hand to Puck's knee and leaves it there for a second.

"She knows you didn't mean it," Finn tells him.

"Sure, now she does," he looks up to the ceiling of the church as he talks and Rachel sobs even harder. "But she sure as hell didn't know that when she was down here."

"It's alright man," Finn pats Puck's kneecap as he gives off a willing smile. "You loved her."

"Doesn't matter," Puck pushes his kneecap farther from Finn and raises one hand to the skin underneath his right eyelid and just leaves it there. "And sure, I liked her a whole lot and everything, but s'not like she returned those feelings. God damnit."

"Just because she felt something for Brittany that was like, bigger than what she felt for you doesn't mean she didn't love you," Finn tells him with an agreeing head nod from a teary-eyed Rachel.

"So you knew, too?" Puck asks.

Rachel chimes in, "We all did."

They look over to Brittany for a second and she's got her hands folded, resting them on top of the wooden bench in front of her.

"Brittany?" Rachel whispers. "What are you doing?"

"Telling Santana that I'll wait for her," Brittany answers indifferently. She isn't crying anymore but she's not her happy-go-lucky self, either. "And I'm asking her to wait for me, too."

Rachel feels her throat swell and her lip quivers a bit, her hands shaky as she places them into Finn's lap. "You think you could fall in love up there?"

"If you can fall in love down here, you can fall in love wherever Santana is too," Brittany nods.

"That's a good way to put it," Rachel nods.

"I thought of that all by myself," Brittany beams proudly, a glint of a tear in the bottom corner of her eye.

**... ... ...**

They sing for Santana in rehearsal on Monday.

Brittany tells them to sing anything but _Keep Holding On_.

Rachel suggests Neil Diamond's _Done Too Soon_ and Brittany shakes her head.

"Melissa Etheridge's _Come Through My Window_ is better," she says.

Rachel arches her brow in confusion but Puck nods his head and tells Brittany to go for it.

She does. Twice.

The first time she messes up the opening lyrics but she keeps going. The second time she sings it just because she wants to make sure Santana hears it.

**... ... ...**

By the time they start up college in the fall, Puck's working part-time in a little guitar store back home in Lima. He attends a few classes online even though he's got no idea what he's gonna do with his life.

He begins dating a brunette chick named Carly from down at the shop; 'a music guru', he calls her. The only way they all find out is when he brings her home to Lima for Thanksgiving at the Berry's house.

Rachel snickers right as they enter her bedroom, their hands intertwined. She nudges Finn and mumbles something he can't hear. He doesn't need to hear; he knows it's some sort of remark about how he's never really wanted Santana anyway. It _always_ goes back to that.

"Shut it, Berry," Puck snickers. "Take Frankenstein with you and help your dad with the turkey. He told me to come upstairs and find your asses."

She nudges him on the forearm on the way out of the door, a 'told you so' smirk plastered across her face as she exits her bedroom.

"Bitch thinks I'm already over my old girlfriend," Puck turns to Carly with a hiss.

"You're not over her?" She asks him like he's just committed a chain of robberies and asked to stay at her place undercover.

He shrugs, "Never gonna be."

**... ... ...**

Brittany teaches dance classes in Lima, so she's always around. When she shows up at Rachel's two hours late with no Artie, she can't help but ask Brittany about him.

"I can't," Brittany looks to the floor, scuffing her sneaker across the area rug in the Berry's living room. "I promised San."

"You'll have to move on eventually," Rachel nods, placing her hand to the small of Brittany's back gently.

"San didn't, so I won't," Brittany tells her.

Rachel doesn't ask any questions.

Brittany brings Santana up at dinner because on the way to Rachel's she _totally_ saw a rainbow and it _totally_ reminded her of Santana.

Rachel grabs Finn's hand from under the table and brings it up higher. He kisses her ear.

Carly's glaring and making scratches with her fork into the china, nudging at Puck with her elbow. He smiles into his water glass.

**... ... ...**

He called her a bitch, and sure, she was a total bitch to him sometimes, but he can't say he didn't enjoy it. He was her first kiss, her first time, her first boyfriend… _whatever_. He can happily say he was a part of Santana Lopez's life in some way; he was her friend, her lover, and even though it wasn't always the easiest when they were together, he'll still always remember them as just that, together.

She called her her 'best friend' and while she wishes it could've been something else – something _more_ – she wasn't lying either. She can happily say she was a part of Santana Lopez's life in some way; she was her best friend, her lover, and she'll always be, even when it's the hardest to be anything of hers at all.

**... ... ...**

Brittany knows she won, they all tell her, but she never brags about it and she never tells Puck.

She feels like a winner because she tells herself every night that she'll wait. She prays too, sometimes, and she doesn't even fall asleep when she does.

Yeah, she wins.

**... ... ...**

**fin.**

a/n: Eep! Don't hurt me for killing Santana. She's one of my favorite characters but the idea for this fic just struck me one day and I decided I had to write it in some way, shape or form and well… this was my result. I do hope you enjoyed and would love to hear your feedback in a review, perhaps!


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